Saturday, December 17, 2016

Frugal Warmth During Our First Snow Flurries

We are getting our first flurry's of the winter this evening. I, personally, love snow! It is always so pure, so white, so crisp. A blank canvas where beautiful nature seems to whisper "look at me"!

I am excited. I know it won't stick and we won't have any accumulation, however, I am enjoying the beauty of the different shaped flakes falling to the ground.

With that being said, we are having record lows in my neck of the woods (It is 8 pm and it is down to 19 degrees with a wind chill of 5). We burn wood so this can be a problem if no one is awake to stoke the fire in the middle of the night. I will be setting my alarm to get up every 2 hours to add a log and make sure that the inside of the house stays warm.

My main concern is the water pipes. Every year we have several breaks. It can be costly and irritating. This year we have been turning our water off at night where it comes into the house and draining all the water out of the pipes by leaving the spouts open and flushing the toilets. We haven't had one break this season and we also haven't had any frozen water pipes to deal with either!

To keep ourselves warm and toasty in our beds we use electric throw blankets. We each have one. They cost about $20 at Walmart. I prefer the throws over full sized electric blankets because if the weather is cool enough to need a little heat up on the feet or legs but not cool enough to waste wood in a fire the ones who are cold can just grab their throws. We turn them on about 20 minutes before going to bed. When we crawl in bed it is warm and comforting. It costs only about $1 a month to run an electric throw blanket. With 6 of them running in the house we use about $6 worth of electric heating our beds over the course of a month. That is a pretty reasonable price for sleeping comfortably. The dogs pile in the beds with us and all cuddle in for the evening. It's a cozy and wonderful time of year here on our homestead. (It is also my favorite time of year. You can always add clothes to warm up but taking off clothes to cool down isn't always an option).

How do you frugally save money during the winter time?


Monday, December 12, 2016

Free Kindle Books Today


Amazon often has books you can read for free on Kindle. If you don't have a Kindle you can get the Kindle App on any device. These were free at the time of posting. Make sure to check the price BEFORE clicking buy now. 

If you like a book make sure to buy it for FREE so it is in your library to read at a later date. 



















Homesteading Tools! Expected verses Actual

So with all that has been going on I have kind of gotten off track of keeping things together homestead wise. With working 2 jobs and the farm and the kids and just life in general happening I have gotten just mired down.

I realized this yesterday and just decided I needed to regroup and readjust where I am and what I need to get done....I have a lot of people ask me about tools and such we use on the homestead. We made a list years ago of things we would need. We have worked slowly on getting those items built up. We had a set limit of money we would spend on each item. As we find them for that price we buy them if we have the extra money.

Here is that list.



The first item is the item we needed. The first price is what we anticipated paying. The second price (if there is one) is the price we actually paid.




Green House $200

2 compost piles $50 $40

Chainsaw $100 $169*

Bone Saw $20 $5

Gardening Fence $200 FREE

 2 Plum Trees $60 $30 

 2 Apple Trees $60

2 Peach Trees $60 $12 (still need 1)

Good Barn $500

Bow Saw $20 $5

Horse Trailer $1000 $1400

Wood Stove $300 $65

Heirloom Seeds $100 $79

2 Spade Shovels $50 $6 (still need 1)

2 Regular Shovels $50 $6 (still need 1)

6 Quilts $500 decided to make on own

Tractor $3000

Tiller $300 $70 (auction)

Wheel Barrow $100 FREE

15 Rabbit Cages $300 $60

2 Freezers $300 $65 for one the other free

Hoe $25 FREE

Broad Fork $50

6 Oil Lamps $100

Cast Iron Cookware $100 $60*

Canning Jars/Lids continual cost per year

Welder $200 $50

Torch $50

Pressure Canner $150 $79

We overspent on the chainsaw. However, we did get a bigger one than we anticipated and I bought it for Morgan new for Christmas as a gift. I did use a coupon and it was on sale. We had figured we would have to buy a smaller used one so we came out ahead by spending the extra money and getting a larger new one for not much more money.

Morgan got me my cast iron set (I had many pans already but wanted to add to them) for Christmas the same year we got the Chainsaw. It was on sale the day after Thanksgiving.

The freezer at Church started frosting inside really badly. The church opted to buy a new one. They gave us the old one and we figured we would have to replace the seal. We unloaded it in the drive way where it had to set for 3 days until we could get it inside. This warmed the seal up enough that walla it went back into place and so we had to pay nothing for it.

We paid more for the horse trailer than we anticipated, however, we got a chance to buy a bigger one that was much newer than we had planned which would do us a lot better for just $400 more. We got this from a friend and were able to make payments on it.

The bone saw and other saw we got super cheap off of a Facebook group where a guy was selling out a bunch of stuff because he was moving out of the country.

The wood stove we bought off of a Facebook selling group. It wasn't the exact kind I wanted but it worked for what we need. In a few years, after we get a few other things bought up, I will purchase a new one when it goes on sale for the end of the season.

The rabbit cages came cheaply because we had some wire given to us and we bought some other wire on sale. It was MUCH cheaper than we had anticipated materials wise.

Heirloom seeds will be a constant, however, we won't have to buy the same kinds of seeds every year as we can harvest from what we grow. I do anticipate it costing us about $50 per year to add new things and such.

We add to this list as we find other things we might need and as we learn of things that would just make our homesteading life easier and better.

Hope this list inspires you to make one of your own and figure out what you need! Planning is definitely key to Homesteading.